When my hard disk, surprisingly, crashed

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

Enough product reviews for now. Let us talk about something else, especially now that I happen to have a story for you. But, first of all, please do not laugh at me.

My hard disk crashed about two months ago.

I was working on an article one night when I began to hear a funny screeching noise coming from my PC.

"Wow, that must be the fan again," I said to myself, as the screen was still there and the computer did not seem to be hanging.

I brought my ear closer to the PC, and I realized the sound was coming from the front side of the casing, not from the power supply at the rear. I quickly saved my work and turned the computer off. I waited for a few minutes and then I turned the computer on again, hoping the noise would go away. Who knows, maybe the machine was overheated and all it needed was a chance to cool down. I was shocked. The screeching noise was there again, and now the computer refused to boot at all.

Like almost all computer users, I did not expect this to happen to me. At least, it should not have happened when the hard disk was just a little over two years old. And I was not using a cheap hard disk. It was a fast 30 GB IBM Deskstar. You do not find it at just any computer store, even in Dusit Mangga Dua. The stores do not usually have IBM hard disks in stock, as these hard disks are far more expensive than Maxtor or Seagate and customers do not usually ask for them. Only choosy people like myself use IBM hard disks.

I usually buy my IBM hard disks directly from Ark Media on Jl. Kentang in Glodok, a location in West Jakarta that requires a lot of struggle to reach. To my knowledge, they are the only distributor of IBM hard disks. I have always preferred IBM hard disks, as I think they perform better and are more reliable. Now, how come this one crashed just after its two-year warranty expired?

When I opened the casing, I saw a lot of black smudge inside. I knew right away that overheating was the cause of the hard disk's early death. No hard disk can operate for long without proper air circulation.

* Fans are critical

Sometime last year, I noticed the fan inside my Elan Vital's power supply stopped working. However, because the power supply was a high-quality one -- and I wrote about the importance of using a really good power supply in one of my articles, I did not rush to replace it. The problem was that Elan Vital power supplies are not easy to find. My mistake was not to replace the fan right away, even as a temporary solution. I kept using the computer with the casing left open, hoping that the room's air conditioner would help keep the components cool.

I also installed an ASUS Probe utility to monitor the temperature of the vital components, like the processor and the motherboard. The utility always reported that their temperatures remained far below the thresholds. Meanwhile, I knew I did not have to worry about the processor, as I had already installed Elan Vital's Whisper kit. This fan and air duct combination pumps the cool air outside the casing right onto the chip.

When I was still unable to find the Elan Vital power supply that I wanted, I eventually had the fan replaced. Then I put the cover of my casing back to ensure proper air circulation. Apparently, though, the damage had already been done to my IBM Deskstar hard disk. At least, its life had been shortened because I did not replace the fan right away.

So, lesson number one today, do not assume that if the temperature of the processor or the motherboard is still far below the limit that you are OK. The other components, especially the hard disk, also need proper air circulation to keep them cool. What is more, IBM hard disks tend to run much hotter than others.

* No backup

Well, what's the big deal about a crashed hard disk? Hard disks are known to die and they always die at an inopportune time. Budi Wahyu Jati, Intel's country manager for Indonesia, once told me that in his company people had to replace their crashed hard disks at least once a year. Those folks have to travel so much with their notebooks that get banged around all the time.

What was terribly embarrassing -- and caused me a tremendous amount of stress -- was that I did not have any backup for the latest data that was on the hard disk. The last time I copied the My Documents folder to a CD was in December last year!

How could I have been so careless? Since I was always installing and uninstalling programs, my hard disk was a mess. What I had in mind was to reformat the entire hard disk and reinstall Windows XP on a clean slate. But before I could do that, I would have to back up all my Outlook data as well as all the files in My Documents and its subfolders. However, before I could do that, I wanted to clean up the folders and delete all the files that I no longer needed.

As it happened, my days were full of deadlines so I never got around to throwing away the garbage, backing up my data and reinstalling Windows XP on that hard disk. When the hard disk crashed, it took away all my records, data, invoices that I had not submitted, as well as dozens of projects that I had almost finished. Needless to say, the following days I was still dazed, unable to accept that this was truly happening to me.

* Blank CDs are cheap

If you use Windows XP, you would not believe how easy it is to copy files to a blank CD-ROM. All you have to do is start Windows Explorer, go down to the My Documents folder, click the right mouse button on the folder name and select "Send to CD-R (D:)". If your CD Writer is correctly installed, the item should be available on the menu list. Windows XP has a simple, built-in utility for writing data on a blank CD-ROM, so even if you have not installed Easy CD Creator or a similar utility, you can still create your data backup easily.

Now I know I should have no hesitation in creating a backup on a CD-ROM. A good quality blank CD-ROM now can be had for about Rp 2,000 apiece. I would cringe if you asked me the value of the data that I lost when my hard disk crashed.

Next week, I will tell you what extreme measures I took to ensure I would not experience the same catastrophe again. I will even show you how foolish I was in my anger and desperation, as there are actually a host of other alternatives to back up your data besides burning a CD-ROM.